Nicety

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Nicety \Ni"ce*ty\, n.; pl. {Niceties}. [OE. nicet['e]
     foolishness.]
     1. The quality or state of being nice (in any of the senses
        of that word.).
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              The miller smiled of her nicety.      --Chaucer.
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     2. Delicacy or exactness of perception; minuteness of
        observation or of discrimination; precision.
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     3. A delicate expression, act, mode of treatment,
        distinction, or the like; a minute distinction.
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              The fineness and niceties of words.   --Locke.
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     {To a nicety}, with great exactness or accuracy.
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From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  nicety
       n 1: conformity with some esthetic standard of correctness or
            propriety; "it was performed with justness and beauty"
            [syn: {justness}, {rightness}]
       2: a subtle difference in meaning or opinion or attitude;
          "without understanding the finer nuances you can't enjoy
          the humor"; "don't argue about shades of meaning" [syn: {nuance},
           {shade}, {subtlety}, {refinement}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  120 Moby Thesaurus words for "nicety":
     absoluteness, accuracy, acquired taste, appreciation,
     appreciation of differences, appreciation of excellence,
     appreciativeness, artistic judgment, attention to detail,
     attention to fact, care for truth, choiceness, circumstantiality,
     civilized taste, civilizedness, connoisseurship, conscientiousness,
     correctness, critical niceness, criticality, criticalness,
     cultivated taste, cultivation, culture, daintiness, delicacy,
     delicate distinction, delicateness, detail, differentia,
     differential, discriminating taste, discriminatingness,
     discrimination, discriminativeness, distinction, elegance,
     exactingness, exactitude, exactness, excellence, exquisiteness,
     faithfulness, fastidiousness, faultlessness, feel, feeling,
     fidelity, fine palate, fine point, fineness, finesse, finicality,
     finicalness, finickiness, finickingness, flawlessness, fussiness,
     good taste, grace, gracefulness, gracility, graciosity,
     graciousness, hairline, judiciousness, literalism, literality,
     literalness, making distinctions, margin, mathematical precision,
     meticulousness, minuteness, narrow margin, nice distinction,
     niceness, niceness of distinction, nuance, palate,
     particle of difference, particularity, particularness, perfection,
     point of difference, polish, preciseness, precisianism, precision,
     punctiliousness, punctuality, quality, refined discrimination,
     refined palate, refinement, right, rightness, rigidity, rigidness,
     rigor, rigorousness, scrupulosity, scrupulousness, selectiveness,
     sense, sensibility, sensitivity, severity, shade of difference,
     sophistication, strictness, subtle distinction, subtlety, tact,
     tactfulness, taste, tastefulness, textualism, the letter,
     wide margin